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Animation Retrospective - The 1970's (Part 1)
People have asked me why the 1970's is my least favorite decade in terms of animation, and since it'll take quite a while for my Eras of Animation to get here, I thought that I'd go over it in one of these retrospective journals. Keep in mind: all of this is in hindsight. I was not actually alive during the 70's. Also, if there's a decade (excluding ones I've already done, or the current decade) or a more specific genre you'd like me to do a retrospective of, please let me know. The 1970's finds itself right smack dab in the middle of something known as the Dark Age of Animation. In the 70's many things of the previous couple of decades compounded. To produce a weekly television series, instead of having theatrical cartoon shorts as things like the Looney Tunes had done in the past, you needed to cut corners or risk not getting a profit at all. Most shows got around this by doing two things: Number one, they used a technique called limited animation. Like flash animation that came later on, not all to use this technique were bad or lazy, but most people who used it used it to save time and money or otherwise cut corners. It's kind of hard to explain exactly what limited animation looks like or how it's done. What you essentially do is mix and match certain parts of your cartoon, rather than draw every new cell. In TVTrope's page of the subject, they have an example. Instead of drawing a new angle for when a mouse jumps off a diving board, they simply rotate the cel a little bit each time to create a stilted, lifeless illusion. (For those who don't know, a cel is a transparent piece of paper that people draw cartoon characters or objects of interest on and they overlay it with a static background). And number two, this is the decade that gave birth to the myth that "animation is only for kids." Because most adults wouldn't watch something lazily made like that, people had to aim at kids and only aim at kids. The Saturday Morning Cartoon format was made: cartoons would air once a week in the morning for kids while their parents were sleeping. And because cartoons were being aimed at kids, and only at kids, that led to other problems. Parents groups began adding ridiculous rules and constraints ("The complainer is always wrong"). It got so bad that conflict was discouraged from these cartoons. Conflict, an essential component to any story. So in essence, they wanted G3 My Little Pony. Actually no, because at the time, cartoons explicitly based on toylines were illegal. So, I dunno want they wanted. Perhaps we should take this year by year, and we'll start with movies this time around. Why? Because I've seen a lot more 70's animated movies than I've seen 70's animated television series. 1970: Oh good, we get to start with the fucking Aristocats. I really hate this movie. In fact, I want to review it, but the problem is that it's incredibly boring and not much happens in it that's really worth complaining about (except the racist Chinese stereotype cat). A lot of the movie is just... walking. There isn't much of a plot to speak of. An old lady leaves her money to her cats, and the butler being outraged tries to kill them. They survive and spend the rest of the movie getting back. It may just be hindsight with movies like Homeward Bound (not animated, but similar premise), but I even have a hard time remember anything that happening in the film, and I can distinctly remember what happens in movies like Home on the Range and Happily N'Ever After, which I have also criticized for being very boring. Also, this is the final movie that Walt Disney personally green-lit, and was most likely the first one produced without him in its entirety. And that might explain a thing or two. This movie isn't so much as "incompetant" as it's not even trying. The other movie you've heard of from 1970 is Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Rankin/Bass. I like these specials and I watch them every Christmas, but when you talk about one, you do talk about them all and I don't have anything unique to say about each one. Well maybe one thing. You know that song "You Put One Foot in Front of the Other?" Try listening to that while playing QWOP, it's absolutely hilarious. But they're decent stop motion films at least, and I suppose they've earned their place in pop culture. The other two films of this year were Santa Claus and the Three Bears, and the Phantom Tollbooth. I'll be honest, I had never even heard of the former and I don't know anyone else who has either. Apparently it's in the public domain right now and you can watch it on DVD or Netflicks. The Phantom Tollbooth on the other hand... is another film you've probably never heard of. It wasn't a box office success. But it was produced by Chuck Jones and is the last MGM film to have both animation and live action. According to wikipedia though, there's a remake in the works and has been since 2010. It honestly feels like this is some kind of childhood classic that I just happened to not grow up with. There were other films released in other countries this year, but this is primarily about American animation. Let's move on to teleivsion.I'll be honest, there's only two cartoons I've even heard of this year. One of them is Josie and the Pussycats, which as I understand it has become kind of a cult classic. The other one is the Harlem Globetrotters animated series. Well, I knew that they existed. This is almost as surprising as when I learned that Mr. Bean had an animated series. Also, apparently there are two interesing shows this year: Sabrina and the Groove Goolies and then its spin-off the Grove Goolies (or maybe that's backwards, it doesn't matter). In this year, we get a spin-off of a spin-off (yes, that's a spin-off of Sabrina the Teenage Witch), and this is going to be a common problem throughout the decade. The only show this year, besides Josie and the Pussycats that lasts this year is Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down? This feels... like a parody of a Saturday Morning lineup, rather than what was actually going on in 1970. I'm curious if anyone was around at this time, what were these shows like? They sound bizarrely awful. 1971: What films were released? Besides, another Rankin/Bass effort (Here Comes Peter Cottontail), the most significant movie is Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which is more of a live action film than an animated one. In the vein of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Cat and the Hat gets his own animated TV special. It's good, but it's not as much of a classic as the Grinch. It's definitely a million times better than the live action Cat and the Hat. Shinbone Alley is about a cat that commits suicide and comes back as a cockroach. Well, it looks like this article is a learning experience to me as much as you guys. I kinda want to see this film on premise alone. And finally, there's "The Point!" a movie that was literally claimed to be inspired while the writer was on acid. I kinda want to see that one too. But once again, only four movies were aired this year. Television. Both the Archies and the Flintstones get a spin-off. Have you noticed a pattern yet, because it's going to continue as we go along here. The Jackson "5ive" get their own television show because... god that shit's popular, we gotta give them their own cartoon show. Hannah Barbara rips off their own show Scooby Doo with The Funky Phantom. The only other new show this year was another Hannah Barbara creation, Help!... It's the Hair-Bear Gang. Apparently it occasionally airs on Boomerang, or I would not believe that this a real cartoon. Oh, like many shows of this era, it contains a laugh track... because it worked on the Flintstones. By the way, the score so far: one good classic television show, and no "great" animated movies (we need better than just good Rankin/Bass). 1972: At least things are getting interesting here. Let's start with the TV special Snoopy, Come Home. Yay, we finally have a "great" feature length animation. I really do love this movie. The problem? It was a box office failure, only getting back a quarter of its million dollar budget. And this is Peanuts, one of the most successful and well-known comic strips of both the time and all time. The Lorax gets a television special, and it's better than the animated film we have nowadays. Apparently this year there was also a Treasure Island animated film that I've never heard of. Made by Filmation though. And finally we have to talk about Fritz the Cat, the first X rated animated film, ever. Considering my history with adult animation you might be surprised on my opinion of this film in that it's one of the most important animated films of the 1970's. In fact, Ralph Bakshi, the guy behind this film, is one of the only five animators that I believe have benefitted the medium of animation by being edgy for the sake of being edgy. (The other three are John K or not, Aaron McGrueder,Trey Parker and Matt Stone). That's not to say that Fritz the Cat is just edgy for the sake of being edgy. It's actually a satire, and was also conterversial because of its political themes. More importantly, though, we can put it in context. This film was more or less made to challenge what was going on in animation at the time—the lack of conflict, pandering to kids. This was one of the first pieces of animation at the time that said that animation did not have to be that way. As you can imagine, it was hard to get funding for something like this. The history behind this film is actually really fascinating, but there's not enough time for me to go into it here. As for television... there's a lot of them. Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space. What the holy hell? Never mind the Brady Bunch spin-off, never mind the second Flintstones spin-off in two years, never mind the Scooby and Lassie spin-offs I want to know about Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space. For those who don't know, there's a trope called "Recycled in Space" and trope names tend to exaggerate what they're talking about, but no, there really is a spin-off that took place in outer space. Let's talk about the other shows: The Amazing Chan and the Chan Chan... his children and their dog Chu Chu solve mysteries... next. The Osmonds animated series... my god, what the hell. I'm glad that this trend died. I can only imagine what Katy Perry or Lady Gaga the animated series would be like. And yeah, that's pretty much all the context you need here. The Roman Holidays brought a look at "modern-day" life in Ancient Rome. Goddamnit Hannah-Barbara, do something original for once. Well, there is the adult animated sitcom Wait Till Your Father Gets Home. It went on for quite some time, and would be the only adult animated sitcom to air more than one season until the Simpsons... over 15 years later. Unlike its predicessor the Flintstones though (or the Simpsons), I've never heard of this one. It at least... sounds interesting. It's about a man Harry who "often bickers with his more liberal children Alice and Chet over various social issues of the day." Also, he has a neighbor who is a conspiracy nut. Holy shit, it's King of the Hill like 30 years before King of the Hill. Sealab 2020 was a science fiction people living in an under water environment that was at least popular enough to be parodied in 2001 with Sealab 2021. (I hear that show has the same kind of humor as Friendship is Witchcraft). There's actually one celebrity-based show this year that actually managed to become a classic: Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. It ran on-and-off until 1985, which is damn impressive. And that's because the quality was there. The educational content, dealing with everything from stage fright to STD's was handled so well that it earned Bill Cosby a doctorate in education. It's probably the greatest animated series to come out of the 1970's. 1973: If I was talking about world-wide films, I would be talking about Fantastic Planet (which is known as one of the greatest science fiction animated films of all time), but there will be time for that later. In America, Ralph Bakshi gets his second hit: Heavy Traffic, also rated X. It's not as significant as Fritz the Cat, but it's of similar quality. This year Disney released Robin Hood. It's not one of my absolute favorites, but it's a good film. During this time Disney was using a sketchy style, which you see in something like the Jungle Book and they wouldn't stop until sometime around the Black Cauldron. I don't know if it has anything to do with anything, but I seem to like it less than their other styles that they've adopted throughout the years. It doesn't have anything to do with the story or overall production, but it's just something that I've noticed. The movie Robin Hood is a pretty faithful and likable telling of the original Robin Hood myth, with all of the characters anthropromorphic animals. It's definitely an interesting stylistic choice that Disney hasn't really done before or since (in all other Disney films, animals have the role of animals), with the exception of Disney's package films. If anything, it does make Robin Hood unique. Finally this year we have Charlotte's Web. It's a classic story and a good adaptation. There's not much you need to know beyond that. I mean it was popular enough to get a straight-to-DVD sequel in 2003 which, if the cover is anything to go by, is probably something I'm gonna have to review down the line. But the original holds up quite nicely, and this movie may be more famous than the book. If not, it's almost as well known. In elementary, I'm pretty sure this is the movie they showed you while you were reading the book. In the world of television, let's knock out the spin-offs. We're approaching like twenty at this point and we're not even halfway through the decade. Yogi's Gang, a spin-off of Yogi Bear. The Addams Family animated series. Emergency! +4. What they did for that one was took a medical drama, animated it, and had four children join the paramedics. Mission Magic was a spin-off of the Brady Kids, which as I remind you, was a spin-off of the Brady Bunch. Were all spin-offs of this decade bad (or at least creatively bankrupt)? No. This year we got Star Trek, the animated series. Unlike say, the Brady Bunch, making Star Trek animated kind of makes sense. Star Trek is a science fiction show, and animating something can bring about a much better spectacle or more creative special effects than something done in live action would be. At the very least, it makes it more practical or economical. And once again, the writing is here. This was the first Star Trek series to win an Emmy Award. Schoolhouse Rock aired this year, which is another cult classic. Definitely one of the better purely educational series out there. This is a very, very weird time when the educational stuff seems better than the stuff meant to purely entertain. Hannah-Barbara releases Jeannie. No, it's not a spin-off of I Dream of Jeannie. It's an answer (read: rip-off) to I Dream of Jeannie. Goober and the Ghost Chasers stars a group of teenagers and their dog Goober as they solve spooky mysteries. Bailey's Comets was speed racer, except on rollerskates. Butch Cassidy was a rip-off of Josie and the Pussycats. One of the more significant shows released this year was the Super Friends. Looking back, with shows like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans, or even something like the Tick or Freakazoid, it's hard to look back and find that much enjoyable about these, but Super Friends was very significant, running for 13 years. 1974: We're in the home stretch for this half of the decade... Were there any significant movies? The sequel to Fritz the Cat, without any involvement by Ralph Bakshi, "The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat." It recieved an R rating, mixed reviews, and was a box office bomb. Gee, I wonder why. Good things always happen when people who don't know how to make adult cartoons make adult cartoons /sarcasm The only other film this year? Journey Back to Oz, which was another financial failure. Let's talk about television. This decade sucks. This decade sucks. I hate it. You know what we need? An animated spin-off of Gilligan's island. No no, I've got one better, an animated spin-off of the Patridge Family that takes place in the year 2200. No explanation of how the family got there. And let's rip-off the Jetsons. Also, Hannah-Barabara made this along with the Jetsons. Devlin, a show "inspired" by Evel Knieval. The U.S. Of Archie is another Archie spin-off. The Dogfather... a parody of the Godfather. Valley of the Dinosaurs... a modern day family gets thrust back in time where they meet a prehistoric family living with their pet dinosaur. And a bunch of other stuff erased to history. Here's the thing. In other decades, where there are nothing but bad shows airing, like in the 2000's, they at least have reruns. But in this decade, almost all of these shows didn't last for more than a year. So in each decade, besides long-runners like Scooby Doo or Super Friends, things like these random spin-offs were literally all that was on. And at this time there were no dedicated cartoon channels. You pretty much had a Saturday morning block, and that was it. Join me next time when we see the rest of the decade, and by now you should probably know why the 1970's is my least favorite decade in animation. Category:Miscellaneous